Windows 8 sales more than 200 million licenses, impressive but behind Windows 7

Microsoft has been somewhat quiet about Windows 8 sales, but today Microsoft’s Executive Vice President of Marketing Tami Reller at the Goldman Sachs Technology & Internet Conference said that the latest version of its operating system has passed the 200 million licenses sales. This is over 100 million more licenses than six months ago when Microsoft reported that Windows 8 reached over the 100 million copies sale.

Looking at the number in millions seems very impressive, but looking back to Windows 7 sales, the company falls behind by 40 million as Windows 7 sold over 240 million licenses in the same 16 months period.

The reason for the slow sales in part is because of the current PC market, how people are shifting from desktop to mobile devices and other big players like Google and Apple are dominating the mobile market. But the other reason is because of the on going problems on Windows 8 not delivering an optimal desktop experience. “We’re being very thoughtful about what’s going well, what’s not going well and how do we change that,” noted Tami Reller. The company did comment on Windows 8.1 Update 1, but leaks has been pouring out left and right showing that Microsoft is trying hard to get the OS in the right direction with new enhancements and features for customers using keyboard and mouse. Also the company is making improvements to reduce the footprint so Windows 8.1 can run on smaller devices.

Tami Reller also said that the current top priority of the developer team is to get more apps in the Windows Store — “We’ve had some good success, but more to do.”

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